At the end of December 2009, Belgian cable operator Telenet served 1,001,000 digital TV customers, up 49% compared to the previous year. This took the digital penetration rate to 43% of all homes connected.
The vast majority of the digital TV customers subscribed to the Telenet Digital TV platform (938,000), with the remaining 63,000 subscribers watching digital TV through an INDI set-top box (on the Interkabel networks acquired by Telenet in 2008). The operator attracted a net 329,000 digital TV customers during the year.
The operator said that its digital TV customers typically generate an ARPU approximately twice as high as the basic analogue cable ARPU. This is due to on-demand revenues, uptake of premium channels, and rental of high end HD cable tuners and PVRs. Total premium TV income reached €115.4 million in 2009, up from €78.0 million in 2008.
The number of analogue homes continues to decline, 2,342,000 at the end of December 2009 from 2,402,000 a year earlier – an organic loss of 60,000 defecting to other platforms. During 2009, basic cable revenues totalled €322.3 million.
